7 Predictions on How NFV and SDN Will Mature

Are NFV and SDN technologies still in their infancy, or will they become the de facto network architecture by the end of 2015, as some claim?

Hitting the Mainstream

NFV and SDN will become mainstream in two years. At Mobile World Congress earlier this year, John Donovan of AT&T reiterated his commitment to convert 75 percent of the AT&T network to NFV and SDN by 2020. In order for this to happen, we should expect to see tier-1 telcos begin to deploy NFV/SDN in production in 2016. By 2017-2018, we should expect NFV to become a mainstream practice. Also by then, the tier-2 telcos and other companies interested in deploying NFV will have evaluated the ROI and best practices learned from the early adopters.

7 Predictions on How NFV and SDN Will Mature

Hitting the Mainstream

NFV and SDN will become mainstream in two years. At Mobile World Congress earlier this year, John Donovan of AT&T reiterated his commitment to convert 75 percent of the AT&T network to NFV and SDN by 2020. In order for this to happen, we should expect to see tier-1 telcos begin to deploy NFV/SDN in production in 2016. By 2017-2018, we should expect NFV to become a mainstream practice. Also by then, the tier-2 telcos and other companies interested in deploying NFV will have evaluated the ROI and best practices learned from the early adopters.

According to many industry analysts and influencers, software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) are the technology game changers in 2015, especially within the telecommunications industry. Why?

According to estimates by research firm Gartner, global IP traffic has increased by a factor of five over the past five years, and will continue to increase threefold over the next five years. However, telecoms services revenues fell by 1.2 percent in 2013 to $1.62 trillion, and grew less than 1 percent in 2014. Thanks to the growth of the Internet of Things, an increasing number of devices and applications are connecting to the network, forcing telcos to find new ways for the network to cope. This has created a need to make networks more flexible and programmable to support this increasing need for data and bandwidth. But questions remain: Are these technologies still in their infancy, or will they become the de facto network architecture by the end of 2015, as some claim? How far and how fast will these technologies really have evolved by December?

In this slideshow, Ali Kafel, senior director and head of telecom business development for Stratus Technologies, offers seven predictions for how NFV and SDN will mature by the end of 2015.

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